I would like to propose as a topic for our coming week the 50th
anniversary of the publication
of C P Snow's The Two Cultures essay. John Brockman has interesting
materials related to this
on his web site The Edge http://www.edge.org
For YASMINERS is the two cultures debate still relevant, or are we in
a new situation where
we need to think in other ways . What is new or different today than
it was 50 years ago ?
It would be interesting to hear from those of you in your 70s now on
our list= who were
already engaged in these questions in the 1960s,
and also from YASMINERS now in
their 20s= what are the problems you face as young artists or
scientists working together
on projects of mutual interest ?
For those of you who live in south america or asia and are on YASMIN,
you live in
cultures with very diffferent histories of both art and science that those of us
who live in the mediterranean region. How does this debate get reframed in your
contexts ? What problems do you encounter in your home towns when you
try and cross disciplinary boundaries ?
Roger Malina
THE THIRD CULTURE
----------------------------------------------------
The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in
the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing,
are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering
visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we
are.
On the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of
C.P. Snow's Rede Lecture,
"The Two Cultures"
Today, May 7, 2009, marks the 50th Anniversary of the publication of
C.P. Snow's Rede Lecture, "The Two Cultures". In a second edition of
The Two Cultures, published in 1963, Snow added a new essay, "The Two
Cultures: A Second Look," in which he optimistically suggested that a
new culture, a "third culture," would emerge and close the
communications gap between the literary intellectuals and the
scientists. In Snow's third culture, the literary intellectuals would
be on speaking terms with the scientists. This never happened.
Although I borrowed Snow's phrase in my 1991 essay "The Third
Culture", it does not describe the third culture he predicted.
The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in
the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing,
are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering
visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we
are. Increasingly, The Third Culture has moved into the mainstream and
the questions it is asking are those that inform us about ourselves
and the world around us.
I am pleased to honor the memory of C.P. Snow and his "Two Cultures"
by presenting "The Third Culture" on Edge, 1997 to today.
John Brockman, Editor
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge284.html
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